Art Science Museum – Future World

Future World is a brilliant exhibition where audiences get to fully experience each and every installation, not just by watching, but through almost every other senses like sound and touch.

Endless wave of waves

In Nature, there are 5 panels of LED projecting an endless wave of waves. Accompanied by soothing music and bean bags strewn across the carpet floor, visitors are encouraged to take a sit or even lie down to relax and drown in the calmness of the sea, which they did so without any instructions.

Building a town

Moving further into the exhibition, we were were greeted with a familiar sight of civilisation. One of the installation was fully interactive. We were given a landscape and all we have to do were to move certain blocks like mountains (for river channels) and houses (for roads). The computer (Kinect) joins similar shapes together and automatically builds a town, with animations of small cars and trains going back and forth. The concept was pretty easy to understand and surprisingly engaging. The table is big enough to hold large crowds and there were enough blocks for everyone to shift. Each shift could result in a different pattern of town and everyone wants to try.

Light cubes

The other interesting project was the cubes. They are colourful and bright, and attracts children and adults alike. However, the concept was not as obvious as the town-building game. Visitors will only know that the cubes actually stack on a plus and minus when you get close to it and touch it. Only then they will try to stack them and see how the colours will change. I feel like it might work better if the plus and minus indents were more deeper and more obvious. Other than that, the technology used for this is impressive!

Light Balls Orchestra

These balls of colourful lights are comes in 2 sizes for both adults and children. Many of the visitors would go ahead to step in and play with them. However, being here before, I actually did not realise that bouncing these balls actually activate sounds of an orchestra and a choir around you! It is a huge pity if most visitors do not realise that part of the installation because of all of the other installation polluting it with sound. Nevertheless, it is inviting, and it takes advantage of what visitors already understood in their early years of their lives what to do with balls: bounce them, or even kick them.

LED crystals – Space Simulation

In the future world, visitors are greeted by thousands of LED crystals hung from the ceiling. As these lights change to simulate movement through space (literally), soothing music plays to suit the various patterns. Being enveloped by thousands of lights gives audiences a sense of wonder, and that there is so much more in the universe to see and experience. All of it in a small space that is made much bigger by mirrors that seems to further expand the universe.

Having been there once, I thought it would just be another field trip. However, there is so much more than meets the eye, and after analysing each installation with the Director of TeamLab, I actually learn much more.

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